


Fake Our Death

by chemomantic



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Ouch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 17:05:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1752251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chemomantic/pseuds/chemomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not one of them thought they'd end up like this. Not one of them thought they'd actually be in the recording studio this way, for the last time, just the four of them, as a band, as an idea, as the original and final My Chemical Romance. Not one of them thought they'd be playing their last song ever with each other, never thought a 'last song' would ever be mentioned, because My Chemical Romance was never supposed to end--was never supposed to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fake Our Death

**Author's Note:**

> i hate mcr!!!!!

      Not one of them thought they'd end up like this. Not one of them thought they'd actually be in the recording studio this way, for the last time, just the four of them, as a band, as an idea, as the original and final My Chemical Romance. Not one of them had thought they'd be playing their last song with each other, never thought a 'last song' would ever be mentioned, because My Chemical Romance was never supposed to end--was never supposed to die. At least, none of them had ever bothered to entertain the thought.

      But if anyone had doubted the end of My Chemical Romance the most, it had been Frank. Frank had thought that, once he joined his favorite band back when he was just nineteen, there would be no such thing as an 'end'. He'd thought that once he was in, he was  _in_. For good. That all of them were in it together, as best friends, as family, as brothers.

      At that moment, he realized that he had been wrong.

      It all started when Matt Pelissier, the second official My Chemical Romance member, the member who had first set up the band with Gerard, had been kicked out due to creative differences. Then there was Bob, dearest Bob, the sixth official member, the band's rock, the man Frank had thanked God for everyday for giving them Robert Bryar. Maybe it should had been a sign then, when Bob left--maybe they should've realized something was up, was wrong.

      This was wrong. Something was up, besides their time as a band.

      "Okay, guys," a slightly higher-pitched, smoke-worn voice said. "Ready?"

      "Yeah," a soft, squeakier voice replied.

      "Mhm," mumbled the third voice, which sounded like the person had the leftover effects of a cold and a stuffy nose.

      Frank would know those voices anywhere--he'd heard them almost everyday for the past twelve years of his life. He almost broke down in tears just then, thinking about how he'd most likely never hear those voices again.

      "Frank?" Gerard murmured after not receiving an answer for nearly three minutes after he'd asked his question. Frank's name on Gerard's thin, pale pink lips made Frank curl in on himself tighter.

      "No," Frank whimpered honestly, shoving his guitar off his lap, not caring if it broke. Maybe if he broke all his guitars, they wouldn't be able to record the song--they wouldn't be able to end the band.

      Gerard sighed. He left his place at the microphone and went over to the corner of the recording studio where Frank was. He squatted down next to the small, heartbroken man. "Come on, Frankie, it's alright. This isn't the end of us--of all of us. We're all still best friends. You and I will still get together every other weekend. Right?"

      "Don't lie to me, Gerard," Frank nearly croaked.

      Gerard frowned. "I'd never lie to you."

      "You're right--you wouldn't just lie to me, you'd lie to all of us," Frank spat, trying to sound hateful and angry, but he refused to meet Gerard's broken hazel gaze in fear of becoming weak and turning into a sobbing mess.

      "What are you talking abou--" Gerard began, but Frank didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to listen to Gerard speak anymore, didn't want to hear Gerard spout bullshit "it's for the best"s and "MCR isn't dead"s.

      "You said it yourself!" Frank yelled, interrupting Gerard's soft, confused voice and making everyone in the room, as well as everyone in the producing area, hold their breaths in silence. "You said that as long as us and the fans believed in us, My Chemical Romance would never die. You said that this band was for fucking life, that it was a life sentence, okay, and you said that if we didn't fuck this up, we could be around for a long time, and twelve years isn't a _fucking_ long time!"

      Nobody said anything for another thirty seconds. Frank was stuck glaring at the stupid wall across from him, mocking him, saying that this was the last time he'd ever be in a recording studio with his three best friends. But Frank already knew that. He didn't need the stupid wall to tell him.

      Ray gave an impressed whistle. "He's got you there, Gee."

      Gerard let out a low breath. "I know he does, Ray, thank you. If you guys could give us a couple minutes, that'd be much appreciated," he said, speaking to not only Ray and Mikey but also the producers on the other side of the glass.

      "No, I don't want to sit in here with you, with some fucking liar who doesn't care about anyone's feelings 'cept his own," Frank protested, but no one listened to him, no one ever listened to him, but he listened as the other two bandmates left the room.

      He was alone with the person he had never thought would leave him all by himself, in the end.

      "Frank, look at me," said Gerard.

      Frank refused.

      "Frank."

      Frank glared harder at the wall.

      " _Frank_."

      Frank kicked the nearest thing in front of him--Gerard's microphone stand--which fell forward, hard, and made an impressive nook in the stupid wall. He smiled.

      "Great," Gerard sighed. "Another mess for me to fix."

      "Besides yourself?" Frank offered bitterly. No reply. Frank didn't need one in order to know that he'd hurt Gerard's feelings, and immediately felt bad. "Sorry," he mumbled, "I didn't mean that."

      "I know," Gerard said, nudging Frank's guitar over and sitting down next to Frank. "Just like I didn't mean to hurt you."

      Frank hesitated before glancing next to him, at Gerard, who was close enough for Frank to feel his breath brushing against Frank's face, yet far enough so that it looked like they were just having a normal conversation and totally were not about to make out like all those moments on stage. All those moments on stage that were never going to be more than just stupid, stupid moments on stage.

      "I know you didn't mean to hurt me," Frank whispered, for if he said anything in his normal voice he was sure it would break. "But that doesn't mean I wasn't going to get hurt, okay?"

      Gerard's eyes saddened even more than they already were. "I understand that. But I just--I just want you to know that just because My Chem's over, it doesn't mean that I no longer love you."

      Frank had to sniffle. "And just because I'm mad at you, doesn't mean that I no longer love you, either."

      Gerard smiled; there it was, the thing that made him fall for Frankie in the first place. "Then we're okay?"

      "Yeah. Whatever. I just want you to be happy, even if that means I don't get to be."

      Gerard's smile lost some of its length as it began to fall. "Frank . . . "

      Frank just shook his head. He didn't want to cry in front of Gerard--he'd already cried too much in front of him over the years, like when he told Frank how hopeless life felt to him, like when he'd tried to sabotage the band's gig, like when he told Frank he was marrying Lindsey, or like a couple days ago, when he'd told Frank he was breaking up the band.

      "It's--it's over with now, right? There's nothing I can do anymore. You wanna go into comics, and Mikey wants to work on his side band, and Ray's gonna do his own solo music, and I--I have Death Spells and shit, right?"

      Gerard's gaze fell to the floor. "Right," he whispered.

      Frank looked down at the floor, too. "Right," he said, his voice thick. He pushed himself off the ground, picked up his guitar and didn't bother to offer Gerard his hand to help him up. "Then let's just get this whole thing over with, I guess. Get the Romance out of our lives. Move on from it like it had never even happened."

      Gerard knew that that was Frank's way of ending the conversation. He'd known Frank well enough by then to know when he wanted to keep the topic going, or when he wanted to end it abruptly, kind of like how Gerard pretended to want to do MCR for a while before one day he just woke up one morning and said, you know what? I'm gonna end the band.

      The guys all returned several moments later and got into their original places amongst the studio: Gerard in the front, picking up the fallen microphone, Ray on the far left, strumming notes on his guitar, Mikey in the center between Frank and Ray, directly behind Gerard, and Frank flanking Gerard's right, always on Gerard's right, even when he knew Gerard was wrong. 

      Gerard was wrong for ending the band.

      But of course Frank wasn't going to hold it against Gerard. He loved Gerard with all his heart, and he'd truly meant it when he'd said he would rather Gerard be happy and well than himself. And if the band was bringing him down, if MCR5 made him relapse back into his depression, then it was simply best to just end it all and leave behind their final song for the generations to come.

      When everyone was finally settled, Gerard held his hand in the air, and all the members focused as his fingers slowly decreased from a total of five fingers, to four, to three, to two, to one. Then the pre-recorded piece of Dewees's piano picked up, and Frank watched as Gerard's mouth fell open, and his voice rang out.

 

       _Some people watch_  
 _Some people pray_  
 _But even lights can fade away._  
 _Some people hope_  
 _Some people pay_  
 _But why we have to stay_  
 _Cause even heroes_  
 _Get the blues_  
 _Or any misery you choose_  
 _You like to watch_  
 _We like to use_  
 _And we were born to lose_

 

      Frank had to look down at his feet as Gerard's words rang throughout his ears. He was tempted to rip the stupid headphones off, but he just stood there, standing still, cradling the neck of his guitar and waiting for his cue.

 

       _I choose defeat_  
 _I walk away_  
 _And leave this place_  
 _The same today_  
 _Some like to sleep_  
 _We like to play_  
 _Just look at all that pain_

 

      Frank had lied. He hated him. Frank hated Gerard so much.

  
  
      _You want the heart_  
 _And to be saved_  
 _But even good guys still get paid_  
 _So watch my back_  
 _And keep the blade_  
 _I think it got you laid_  
 _So fake your death_  
 _Erase your blame_  
 _And leave the lights on when you stay_  
 _Take off your clothes_  
 _And dream that fate_  
 _Come on and feel that shame_

 

       Frank was crying then. The tears were leaking down his cheeks like some sort of sappy, endless waterfall, and landing on his guitar strings, causing his guitar pick to slip against the wrong cords. He was fucking up the music, fucking up the final song, because Frank knew that he was a poor, selfish excuse of a human being, and he couldn't stop fucking _crying_.

 

 

 _ _ _ ___I_  choose defeat_  
 _ _ ___I walk away  
_ _____And leave this place  
_ _____The same today  
_ _____Some like to sleep  
_ _____We like to play  
 _ _____Just look at all that pain_

 

      Frank couldn't stop his sobs now. He was sobbing hard, noisily, despite how hard he'd tried to keep quiet, just like despite how hard he'd tried to keep the band together, they were still breaking up anyways. His shoulders were trembling and so were his fingers, and Frank didn't even care anymore. He just stopped playing and stood there, sobbing into his mic, breaking down in front of everyone like some sort of attentionwhore.

      But Frank Iero was not an attentionwhore.

      No, Frank Iero was broken. And still breaking. And somehow, still standing.

      Which was only because Ray had stopped playing, too, and was holding Frank to his chest, hugging him tightly, his own tears slowly dripping down his face and landing somewhere in Frank's mass of dark hair that he'd long ago lost the motivation to tend to. Frank just let his guitar hang by his side as he hugged Ray back, stifling his painful sobs against Ray's thin t-shirt.

      Mikey joined the hug several moments later, tears brimming in his eyes, and for once, he allowed two or three of them to fall out.

      Gerard was the only one left, staring at the small huddle of hunched backs and trembling shoulders while muffled sobs invaded his now bare ears. The cries that stood out most to him, though, were Frank's--and it, in the simplest turns, shredded his heart to pieces, and made his knees weak in the worst way possible, and made his eyes shine with tears, and his lips tremble with the amount of awfulness he felt for making Frank cry. He couldn't go over there, though--couldn't leave the song unfinished like this. So he took the microphone, and while watching the others, sang.

 

___Just look at all that pain_   
____ __Just look at all that pain  
 _ _ _ _Just look at all that pain . . ._____ _ _ _

 

      Frank tugged away from the others and hugged himself instead as Ray and Mikey held each other, their arms wrapped around one another like snakes refusing to leave the thing they wanted behind. Instead he leaned against the wall and cried, let out every bit of anger, sadness and heartache he felt but didn't know at the time how to let out.

      Gerard didn't want to say those words anymore. He didn't want to look at his band members', his best friends' since the very beginning, pain. He didn't want to watch Frank lose himself in the misery that My Chemical Romance had become.

      Gerard dropped the mic and went over to Frank, and before Frank could fight back, he pulled Frank against his chest and hid his face against the crook of the smaller man's neck. Frank simply went with it, let himself be held together by the man that was pulling him apart, and latched against Gerard while his tears leaked against Gee's t-shirt, but made no difference, just like how Frank had begged Gerard not to end the band, yet still made no difference.

      "Just give me all that pain," Gerard sang softly in that husky, cigarette-smoke-and-coffee-seared voice of his against the shell of Frank's ear. Frank tightened his fists around the fabric of Gerard's shirt; he knew those weren't the correct lyrics, but somehow, they fitted. They fitted the song much better, they fitted them, the remaining 'ideas' of My Chemical Romance, almost exactly, and Frank and Gerard both knew that that small lyric change was the only thing that was going to be changing in the band's current situation.

      My Chemical Romance was over. They all knew that. They might not have accepted it, but they knew it, and they also knew that there was no bringing back the band that inspired hope and love to millions of fans across the world. They knew that they all loved each other deep down, despite any resent that lurked in their hearts.

      They knew then, the last of the final truths MCR had to offer, and as they stood there, crying into one another's arms, none of them ever wanted to forget the raw emotions of tender love and care, never wanted to forget the feeling of the other's arms, never wanted to forget the feeling of being a band.

 

___I choose defeat_   
_I walk away_   
_And leave this place_   
_The same today_   
_Some like to sleep_   
_We like to play_   
_Just look at all that pain_


End file.
